Nostr and ATProto (2024) • Hacker News Board

Re: Nostr and ATProto (2024)

#71

Post by DoctorOW » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 11:47 AM UTC

kalleboo wrote: post #68

kragen wrote: post #61

Are a lot of people using Nostr now? I frequently get recommendations from people to look at stuff on Bluesky, Twitter, or Mastodon, but I think https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45559138 is the first time I've seen anything posted on Nostr.

Every time I've seen a nostr trending feed it's been 100% cryptocurrency chat, so I assume it's only popular within those circles

Every post on alternative social networks I've tried is mainly advertisements for the platform you've already joined. Nostr as a whole isn't crypto, but this large instance seems intrinsically linked to Bitcoin, every account gets a wallet built-in[1].

[1]: https://primal.net/premium

Re: Nostr and ATProto (2024)

#72

Post by jrm4 » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 8:52 PM UTC

grumbel wrote: post #37

jrm4 wrote: post #6

Been thinking about this lately and ultimately, I'm thinking that -- taking into account what we know about "federation" -- both the Nostr and ATProto models are generally pointless because they attack a problem with more complicated tech that must be solved with OR without that tech anyway. Someone said it really well; if your solution relies on "maybe people will learn about or do new complex thing X" it's just not…

If I'd wanted my user account tied to a server controlled by somebody else, I'd just use Twitter. Mastodon isn't solving any problems here. The beauty of Nostr is that it turns the server into a dumb relay, the server controls and owns nothing and you can replace it with another one at anytime or broadcast to multiple at once to begin with. The user is in full control and everything is held together by public-key cry…

Sure it is; you can self host.

Not that it's easy, but still possible.

Re: Nostr and ATProto (2024)

#73

Post by jrm4 » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 9:05 PM UTC

plq wrote: post #14

jrm4 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've nailed a problem with all of these, they would make "deleting your stuff" HARDER. What's stopping the rogue node from saving all your stuff forever? I think "trying to make a thing that can work through rogue or stupid nodes" is just prohibitively harder than "work on making nodes more reliable" (which I absolutely grant is extremely hard.)

> What's stopping the rogue node from saving all your stuff forever? Nothing. You must always have this in mind when posting online: It's impossible to ensure that data is deleted and gone forever.

Right, I mean, I was asking rhetorically.

Taking this idea further -- this is the sort of thing that really makes me consider whether or not ATProto might be literally the worst idea in all of social media.

Which is to say "can track you just as intrusively as any private service, but now your history is cryptographically signable and even EASIER to share and move everywhere"

Re: Nostr and ATProto (2024)

#74

Post by jrm4 » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 9:07 PM UTC

clarkmoody wrote: post #42

grumbel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'd wanted my user account tied to a server controlled by somebody else, I'd just use Twitter. Mastodon isn't solving any problems here. The beauty of Nostr is that it turns the server into a dumb relay, the server controls and owns nothing and you can replace it with another one at anytime or broadcast to multiple at once to begin with. The user is in full control and everything is held together by public-key cry…

The magic moment is importing your secret key into an alternate client and all your contacts, posts, and feed populate from the data stored in the relays.

Y'all, the more I think about ATProto, the more I think it's worth considering that it may be a VERY VERY bad idea.

Which is to say, all of the potentially intrusive human information gathering and spying that you can encounter on twitter, but now cryptographically signable and EASIER to move from place to place.

Perhaps the ability of your mastodons and emails to lose your info might be just as much a feature as a bug.